One day, politics will return. And while it might not be the thing we’re missing most, when it does much will turn on what form it takes. Before coronavirus — a phrase we’ll come to use a lot, I suspect — talk was of a new divide in British politics. Now talk is of a […]
Modern states are mighty states, especially in the developed world. This might, of course, does not make them omnicompetent — there is a crucial distinction between power and its skilled exercise — but they can do many things, both good and bad, and do them well. For this reason, people fear the state, and have […]
In the week commencing Monday 27 January, a song called 17 Million Fuck Offs made the top 40. On Brexit day itself, it was in the top 20. It’s spectacularly rude — featuring about as much swearing as an average Eminem or Stormzy number — and very, very funny. This, however, is only if you […]
Modern authors who decide to liken Donald Trump to Nero or Brexit to the fall of the Roman Republic sometimes incline me to reach for what I’ve come to call my “Bad Classics Klaxon”. Often, all they’re doing is showing how clever they are, while passing over more obscure (but equally interesting) historical periods, periods […]
With the support of the Atlas Network, CapX is publishing a series of essays on the theme of Illiberalism in Europe, looking at the different threats to liberal economies and societies across the continent, from populism to protectionism and corruption. I’m old enough to remember when people who were wheeled out as experts on panel […]
Last week, back-of-a-fag-packet calculations disclosed that I’ve written about thirty thousand words on Brexit for various outlets — locally, in the US, and in Australia. Quite apart from revealing that the definition of Hell is re-fighting 2016’s referendum for all eternity, writing this much made it clear that Brexit is hard. Not only to achieve […]
Earlier this year, I was inveigled into doing something I was sure I’d regret. The inveigler was Martin Cox, Director of the John Locke Institute, and the “something” was consulting in France. In August. Said “consulting” consisted of two weeks teaching (a mixture of lecturing and tutoring on the Oxbridge model) at the Institute’s annual […]
“In general, life is better than it ever has been,” P. J. O’Rourke wrote in All the Trouble in the World. “If you think that, in the past, there was some golden age of pleasure and plenty to which you would, if you were able, transport yourself, let me say one single word: dentistry.” Stephen Davies’s The Wealth […]
